Mayor estimates up to 25,000 stranded as flood worsens

Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer estimates half of her city is flooded and as many as 25,000 people are stranded and without power as flooded streets are impassable not only for citizens but for rescuers.

Zimmer told msnbc’s Rachel Maddow Tuesday night,

They’re in their buildings and half of Hoboken is literally flooded and under water. And so, yeah we don’t have the- we have two payloaders and we’re going in and when we get the calls. And we’re trying to go in where we can to help people but the payloader cannot … we have small city streets and payloaders cannot fit down all the city streets and that’s the only vehicles that we have to get down the city streets. And so we’re begging and pleading and trying to get the National Guard to give us the equipment to be able to get in.

Despite the departure of Hurricane Sandy, conditions in the city across the Hudson River from New York are only worsening as the storm’s effects become a new disaster. Zimmer described her concerns about the flood waters:

I’m just worried about, too, we’ve got live wires in the waters and the waters are completely contaminated and getting more contaminated, um, every minute really, because there are—North Hudson Sewage was completely flooded out. It’s rain water mixed with sewage water—it’s becoming more sewage water.

Asked by Maddow to estimate how many people she believes are stranded, Mayor Zimmer replied, “I’d say about 20 to 25 thousand people are still stranded in Hoboken.”